Emperor Yes and Friends - That's All Folks!

So the Emperor Yes and Friends show came to an end yesterday after a three week residency at Top Office Machines on Bethnal Green Road. All of the work was inspired by two songs by Emperor Yes – Fishes and Wasps – and there was a great variety of work being exhibited.

For those of you that weren't able to make it along, here are my two comics that were featured in the show...

And here's a small selection of some of the other work included in the show...

Wasps Wig by Ayano Fukuoka


Fish by Sephryn Grey


Stand Next To You by Parlee


Fishes by MVF


Bastards by Stevyn Colgan

Emperor Sea by Alec Jones

Wasps music video poster by Sam Ballard

You can check out more of the work featured in the show over at the online store.

Thanks to everyone that made it along over the past couple of weeks, and thanks to Ash from the band for asking me to be involved with the project.

Fan Art Friday: The Secret History of D.B. Cooper

Today's Fan Art Friday picture is inspired by one of my favourite comics of 2012: The Secret History of D.B. Cooper by Brian Churilla, published by Oni Press.

So, who is D.B. Cooper? I was unfamiliar with this particular chapter in US history before I started reading the book, but a quick Wikipedia search later, and I was intrigued by the story of the only unsolved air piracy case in US aviation history:

On November 24 1971, a man using the alias D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 747 aircraft between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. On the ground in Seattle, he demanded $200,000 in ransom and two parachutes. When his demands were met, he ordered the plane to take off, and somewhere over the Washington widlerness he parachuted out of the plane. Over forty years later, D.B. Cooper has never been located and is still on the FBI's most-wanted list.

Churilla's comic finally reveals the truth about D.B. Cooper's history and the events surrounding the hijacking, a psychedelic adventure involving a fringe group within the C.I.A., psychic assassinations, and a red teddy bear called Lee. The Secret History of D.B. Cooper is one of my favourite comics of 2012, and continually keeps you guessing about where it's all heading, before finally coming together in a truly satisfying conclusion.

Here's my drawing of D.B. Cooper and Lee facing off against one of the monsters within "The Glut", the psychic battleground within the human mind...

The fifth and final issue of The Secret History of D.B. Cooper was released on the 18 July.

Emperor Yes & Friends

I am currently exhibiting two new comics pieces as part of the Emperor Yes & Friends show at Top Office Machines, 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, just near the top of Brick Lane.

The show is tied in with the release of the first single by Emperor Yes, and features work by a diverse range of artists working in various media. All the work was inspired by two songs by the band, entitled Fishes and Wasps.

The show finishes on Sunday 29 July.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is my mum's birthday. Now I would never think of revealing a woman's age, but I will point out that 65 is the atomic number of the chemical element Terbium (Tb)...

Happy birthday mum! x

Creative Project #2: Lost & Found

The latest theme for the Creative Project group is Lost & Found, and I came up with the following comic...

Fan Art Friday: Saga

So I've decided to resurrect Fan Art Friday, which was a very short-lived series of posts I started a few years ago, featuring drawings inspired by some of my favourite comics, movies, video games etc. and posted on a Friday.

Today's drawing is inspired by a comic book that I'm really enjoying at the moment, called Saga. It's an ongoing series written by Brian K. Vaughan (who also wrote the equally amazing Y: The Last Man and Runaways) with incredible art by Fiona Staples, and published by Image Comics.

The book is a sci-fi/fantasy epic which follows new parents Marco and Alana, lovers from different planets whose people are at war with one another, struggling to survive with their newborn daughter Hazel amid a galactic war. People who like to compare things to other things in order to make them easily digestible have likened Saga to Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings and Romeo And Juliet, but it's a lot more unique and original than that makes it sound.

Fiona Staples has created a cast of weird and wonderful characters, but my favourite so far is Izabel, a ghost from the planet Cleaves who ends up being Hazel's first "babysitter"...

Saga #5 is out on the 18 July.

Fifty shades of grey...

Official Nintendo Magazine cover competition

The Official Nintendo Magazine ran a competition a few months ago to draw a cover image for the magazine. The issue featured a blank space on the cover (left) to draw your own cover image as part of a feature on Nintendo Letter Box, which is a free download for the Nintendo 3DS that lets you send and receive virtual letters with other 3DS owners.

The winning entry would win a bunch of 3DS titles, plus £50 credit to spend on the Nintendo eShop. So I thought I'd sharpen my pencils and have a go and came up with a drawing of Nikki, the character from Nintendo Letter Box, delivering letters to Mario, Yoshi and the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom...

And... I WON!!!
Here's my cover featured in the latest issue along with a rather nice quote!

Creative Project #1: Genesis

My friend Cathy recently restarted the Facebook group she set up a few years ago called Creative Project. Each month a word/phrase/quote/theme is posted online for members to submit a creative interpretation. It can be photography, drawing, sketches, videos, music... anything as long as it's creative!

The first monthly brief, rather appropriately, was Genesis...

(click on the comic to enlarge)

EXHIBITION NEWS: Emperor Yes & Friends

I am going to be exhibiting two new pieces of work as part of a special show to celebrate the release of the first single by Emperor Yes. Fifteen artists will each be presenting work inspired by two of the band's songs, and there will also be live music, DJ sets, stand up comedy and other events happening alongside the gallery show.

The show will take place at Top Office Machines, 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 7DG, and will run for three weeks from the 6–29 July, with a private view this Thursday 5 July from 8pm.